Very Much Alone

John Duncan

Jonathon broke out with an invisible rash; the kind that makes your skin crawl from the inside, that prickly irritation where even the wind can feel intolerably oppressive biting at each nerve. 

His condition could have come from the lead waters in his father’s foundry, or perhaps from Jon’s unease of solitude, following his spirit-love’s departing.

He was unkempt, unwashed, and his jet black hair was unruly. He ate only when he was offered - sometimes days apart, going from odd job to unemployment - estate to estate - staying barely conscious.

Jon had picked up the habit of speaking with himself in irrelevant conversation, and it was for this reason the employers would move him on after a very short time, as this jabbering disturbed their confidence in his sanity.

Of course in his mind he had mostly been talking with the invisible Fatima; however even she could not tolerate his company endlessly speaking, and so eventually she withdrew herself into the Heavens for the grace of a revivifying renewal in paradise.

Jon was now very much alone. He would have welcomed the slobbering company of Peter and Paul, had they not ripped the other’s throat into pieces. It still mystified him as to how or what could have happened to cause the beasts to turn on one another as they did.

He rummaged absentmindedly into the lower portion of his breeches and pulled out a lump of cheese the size of a walnut. It had gone hard and dry, but nonetheless was a happy find.

“Eie eie eie” he mumbled out loud.

“Fie fie fie” came a cheery voice from the road.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series